


Two Guys In A Bar

by HogwartsToAlexandria



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bar Hook-ups, Established Relationship, Fluff, From First Meeting to Adopting Kids, M/M, Relationship Study, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:21:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28302249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: They've come such a long way, it's time for the happily ever after that they built together.
Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Comments: 8
Kudos: 64





	Two Guys In A Bar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Black_Burrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Burrie/gifts).



> This is a little Christmas gift for the lovely BlackBurrie! I hope it's enjoyable and that you get merry holidays 💙
> 
> Thank you to Desca for making this happen and to all our friends for making life gentler every day 💙🎄

When it started, they were just two guys in a bar. Maybe one was older than the other, maybe his drink was a vintage, prized number while the other drank some colorful, yet cheap, cocktail. It didn't matter when they were just as lonely as each other, and that similitude carried their glasses to their lips with the same resigned exhaustion. 

What were they doing here in the first place? Where had they come from? What were their names? 

Didn't matter; they were just two guys in a bar, and then two guys in the bar's bathroom in a rather quaint, common occurrence of two bodies colliding when the mind is inebriated enough. When exchanging names does not even come up as a possibility. When all that's standing between two guys and their loneliness is the spark of potential — the lack of lube and restraint notwithstanding. 

Tony remembers the taste of Stephen's lips, every bit as sugar-filled as he'd thought, only starker for the desperation the man had put in it. He remembers the way their hands clawed at each other, and the way their bodies slotted together perfectly, and how it was clear from that very first moment of release, that this would be much more than they'd anticipated. Much more than a bathroom hook-up ever hinted at — Tony remembers the gentle noises coming out of Stephen's throat as he jerked him off. He remembers the way they lowered their pants and underwear in unspoken agreement, and the way Stephen turned to face the wall, unprompted. There hadn't been a word exchanged but pleas and moans. It had been dirty, and quick, and so fucking hot Tony had revisited the memory more times than he could count over the following years. But what stuck, what remains to this day, is the way they somehow, in the midst of an alcohol haze and their frantic grinding, ended up with their fingers linked together on the bathroom tile as Tony fucked him that night. 

Two guys in a bar, one day, years ago. 

It seems it was an  _ age _ ago, and it might as well have been. Tony knows how far they've come since, the both of them, both individually and together. He knows how much  _ he _ has grown in Stephen's presence and just how many aspects of his life changed that night at the bar, never to go back to what they were again. 

He stopped taking orders from Obie and put Pepper in his place. He stopped taking shit from people who didn't deserve him, he learned that  _ he _ deserved more. He went to therapy and dealt with the whys and hows of his too close acquaintance with bottles of scotch however vintage they were. Tony stopped drinking altogether, because he found the one thing he had been looking for his whole life, hung onto it, he still has it. A man who can turn his world upside down simply by staying. A man who can love him, as he is and as he wishes to be. A man who gives him what Tony needs, even when he doesn't know he does. 

Stephen turned his world upside down, and Tony likes to think that he too, changed Stephen's life for the better. 

The way Stephen refuses to let go of his hand as they wait for the social worker to be back certainly speaks to how much they both depend on each other — Tony wouldn't even be able to let go if he had to. This is too momentous, too wonderful, and as a result too nerve-wracking to let go of the only familiar touch in this place, the only comfort. 

"What's taking her so long?" Stephen mumbles next to him, and Tony is reminded of their early days once more, of how brashly Stephen would address the world; a dog ready to bite; a snake capable of stinging words you would feel for days. Concern, nerves, impatience, it's all bringing it out of him again, old habits die the hardest. 

"She'll be back soon. Breathe, asshole." Tony grins at him, but even the joking tone he tries to go for sounds hollow when he can barely stay in place himself. 

"You breathe, douchebag." Stephen still answers, trying so hard too. As hard as he can. 

Tony turns a little in his seat without ever letting go of his husband's hands, and kisses his cheek, thinking back on a million kisses and the tingles they always spark inside him. He kisses the tip of Stephen's nose next and with his one free hand, touches the white at the man's temple, the white that has always been there but sinks in more and more as they grow older, and Stephen's face and eyes morph to match it. Years of a life together that they built with both sweat and tears, with a million touches just like this one and another million words both said and not. 

Tony's always wanted kids, but he had almost dropped the idea altogether by the time he and Stephen met, and met again, and started dating, and it turned out that despite his being younger than Tony, they had always wanted the same things from life. A sense of belonging, a home that would be warm and would be theirs, and children fit that picture better than anything else. 

Stephen's eyes are wet with unshed tears of overwhelm as they keep close, and their hands stay linked. There is a world between them, a world that is theirs and only theirs, a world that lets Tony rest assured in the fact that even if they had not gotten the call today, even if they had been rejected by the adoption agencies they applied to, they would have been fine. A world that makes Tony smile as the certitude that they are solid enough, committed enough to making this marriage work for them both and for more and more years to come, sinks in. 

"We got this," he tells Stephen, a whisper that is fiercer than a shout would have been. Because it is a plain truth, a truth made of their bond and of their world and history. Two guys in a bar, one day, years ago. Two men who fell in love over shitty med school cafeteria coffee when Tony went to visit Stephen before important exams. Two men who swore to each other that they would be there no matter what life shoved at them, and resisted the torrents of a car accident, a kidnapping, and early retirements from two life-consuming careers. Two men who built a house near a lake and who are ready to raise a child there. 

"Tony—" 

"Misters Stark? We're ready for you, the mother said you could come and witness the birth." A midwife says, only her head peeking through the waiting room door, making them both startle and get up scrambling to follow her pink scrubs down a hallway. 

She stops with a hand on a door, they can already hear a woman cry out through it. 

"Show time, gentlemen." She smiles at them. 

Tony immediately steps forward to follow her through the door, only for Stephen to pull him back with a tug on their joined hands. 

"What? You okay?" Tony asks, studying his husband's face. There's so much there. So many emotions ranging from fear to excitement to so much joy it's making Tony's cheeks hurt from smiling. 

"I'm fantastic, and I love you," Stephen says, and with another tug on Tony's hands, he brings Tony closer and kisses his cheek, just like Tony did, and echoes his words, "We got this." 

Tony laughs, something he can't control, something that sounds like pure happiness, and they go in. They do, they got this, they are more ready than they have ever been, the house is set up, the nursery is packed full with everything that a spoiled, utterly loved and awaited child could ever dream of needing, and their hearts are wide open. 

They are so ready that it takes them a full minute to realize that, when they come in, the midwife who came to get them is already holding a baby in her hands, and yet the mother is still pushing through contractions, and the obstetrician is telling her he can see  _ the  _ head. 

"Congratulations, your twins are in excellent health." The man tells them, what could only have been a few minutes later, but to Tony and Stephen both is the span of their entire lives changing. 

Tony's eyes are wide enough that they're getting dry, even with all the tears that are pouring out of them, and Stephen's shaking next to him. They look at each other, and then at the exhausted mother of their children. And then two blue bundles are brought to them, and no matter the fact that no one ever told them there would be two, the way Stephen looks with a baby in his arms, and the instant love Tony feels when the second is put into his own… he knows, "We got this." 


End file.
